


Interlude

by Columbina



Category: Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Comfort, Deleted Scene, F/M, mid Loyalty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-18 04:10:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12380634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Columbina/pseuds/Columbina
Summary: The pool of light from their desks forms itself into a little raft of companionship in the long darkness of this awful fucking night.





	Interlude

It's 3:00 in the morning and 1PP is oddly, unnervingly still after the earlier buzz of action. Since the FBI's insistence on jurisdiction, things have cleared out, and with Ross.. well, MCS has ground to a halt and even the usual night owls have gone home. The whole floor has the unsettling feeling of an empty school or a late-night hospital ward. As far as Bobby can tell, he and Eames are the only two here. Neither had been allowed to stay at the crime scene and neither had particularly wanted to go home, either, and so both had wordlessly, automatically been drawn to their common ground - first the car, in silence, then their squad room. The soft pool of light from their desks forms itself into a little raft of companionship in the long darkness of this awful fucking night.

Eames had gone upstairs to sleep thirty minutes before with stern instructions to wake her if anything ("I mean _anything_.") new came in. She doesn't need to know that he's been sitting here on the bunk across from her for ten minutes, trying to give her a few more minutes of rest. He first assumed that the door opening would wake her, then the creak of the bed, and finally the feeling of being watched for so long, but she's dead to the world and he hasn't had the heart to reach out and shake her.

Asleep like this, Bobby can't read anything off her. She doesn't even look like she's dreaming, thank God, so his mind fills in the blanks; superimposed over Alex's relaxed face, he imagines he can see every version of her he's ever known. She's younger, ready to read him the riot act, pregnant with her cheeks filled in by millimeters, disappointed by case, smiling at lunch in a diner last week. It takes her shifting, the bunk groaning as she turns over, to snap him out of it. He holds his breath automatically, watching as she settles back into the jacket she's bunched up on top of the pillow. With a sigh he decides he can't put it off much longer and reaches across the aisle. His fingertips barely brush her shoulder for a hesitant minute - no response - before pressing in gently. Her head turns, chin tucking under like she's trying to avoid a light.

"Eames?" The palm of his hand follows his fingers, laying carefully across her upper arm without shaking. Bobby's not looking to get punched on top of everything else.

"Bobby?" She still hasn't opened her eyes and he can hear her drowsy disorientation. She's coming back to it a lot slower than he'd expect from all their stakeouts, but then it's been one hell of a long night. Not to mention, he didn't bring any coffee.

"Alex," Bobby half-whispers. He pulls his hand away slowly, once he's confident she's coming to, and he misses the contact with an immediacy that startles him. "I got a call." She's turned back toward him now, and even with her eyes closed, he can see the moment everything comes back to her as her eyebrows knit together. With a final sigh, Alex swings her legs over the edge and pushes herself up, blinking blearily into the semi-dark. "I left the light off," he says to fill the space. She doesn't respond, but takes her time to roll out her neck and shoulders, wipe at her mouth, and then look up at him from where she leans over her knees.

"You got a call." She shakes her head, like she's trying to clear the fog, and scrubs a hand over her face and into her hair. "Okay, you got a call. Give me some good news, Bobby?" she asks as her eyebrows quirk up, but before he can, she frowns around at the darkness before zeroing in on her pillow. She gropes under it for a second before pulling out her phone. "What the hell time is it?"

"Three." He gives her an apologetic smile but she waves him off. Before Alex can ask again, Bobby gives her the info, everything he has, which isn't much, but all the same she nods and looks thoughtfully over to her left. As much as he dreaded having to wake her up, he's glad he could at least bring her this, small as it is. More selfishly, he's glad to be a little less alone for a minute.

"Not much we can do about chasing it down for another few hours," Alex says, turning back to him. He's nodding along, already gathering himself to leave.

"I'll come back in a few hours?" Bobby says tentatively, like he might be assuming too much about her need for him, but she nods in agreement and is starting to become just conscious enough to give him an appraising once-over. He hopes the dim light covers up the worst of his fatigue.

"Don't you-" Alex starts, but her voice catches and she clears it quickly. "Don't you ever rest?" It's tradition, rote by now. Something formulaic enough not to rile her emotions any further, he suspects, but still with the genuine note of concern. He'd be blown away at her ability to still worry about him after everything if he weren't just as worried about her.

"I wouldn't be able to," he says, which is true. Bobby's tired to the bone, but there's no way he could shut his brain down on a night like this. "You sleep." After a second's stubborn pause, she gives in with an if-you-say-so gesture before shooting him another less than subtle look. Bobby gives her a wan smile before standing to leave her to a couple more hours' rest.

But he doesn't get to the door before he's stopped in his tracks by a sharp intake of breath. For a second Bobby holds stock still, waiting for a dismissal, but it doesn't come. Over his shoulder, he can hear Alex struggling to keep control of her breathing. He cranes his head down and to the side, just in time to see her hand curl into a white-knuckle fist around the edge of the mattress. Still she doesn't say anything, doesn't even glance at him. He feels certain that some mix of pride and professionalism won't let her, like it wouldn't let her lean into comfort for too long at the crime scene.. but she doesn't tell him to go, either, though he knows she knows he hasn't left. He's just on the verge of deciding what to do when Alex decides for him.

"Sit down," she abruptly grinds out, her voice low. It's gruff but Bobby doesn't take offense, just turns around silently and takes her direction. He hesitates for a moment before sitting down, but a quick flash of her eyes assures him that he didn't mishear or misinterpret, and the mattress dips further as he joins her.

"You okay?" he asks quietly, reluctant to break the silence. Alex is silent for what feels like minutes, swallowing hard in the dark beside him, and Bobby resists a consuming urge to seek eye contact. He knows she won't take kindly to it while she's so vulnerable. Instead, when she gulps again, he reaches down between them to where her hand's got a death grip on the mattress. Gently, he starts to pry Alex's fingers away one by one, slowly, allowing her plenty of time to tell him to get lost. But she doesn't, and he makes short work of it though her fingers resist. This done, he covers her hand in both of his own and drags all three into his lap, stroking just one thumb along the outside of hers.

Beside him, somewhere near his shoulder, Alex lets out a shaky breath that Bobby acknowledges with a small squeeze before his thumb continues its slow work. Alex hates crying, he knows, hates even more for anyone to see it, and out of the corner of his eye he can see her other hand wiping furiously at the tears. He just keeps staring ahead, keeps his thumb moving and his breathing even until suddenly, unexpectedly, her other hand is on his elbow and she buries her head against his arm. He can feel five hot little points of contact searing straight through his sleeve, the very edges of her blunt nails, and a spreading dampness where her closed eyelids are pressed into the fabric. Tension vibrates through her whole body, each muscle balled up defiantly to resist collapse.

Slowly, carefully, like he's afraid she'll spook or shift away as fast as she had at the crime scene or else just hit him, Bobby lifts one hand away from hers and places it against her hair. When the world doesn't end, Alex's body still bundled stiffly against his side, he slides his hand down, pressing her hair tight against her skull, the nape of her neck, down over her shoulders. The hand still folded inside his flexes rhythmically against it as her breathing begins to even out.

"We're gonna get 'em," Bobby whispers, tilting his head down to whisper against her scalp. Anything beyond this - you're alright, I'm with you - feels too intimate in light of the usual physical boundaries they've already crossed tonight, and too insulting to her pride, but Alex seems to hear it all anyway. By slow inches her body starts to relax. Her hand goes slack against his jacket and he can feel some of the tension leeching away into the shadows around them. When she's finally smoothed the hiccups out of her breathing, Alex turns to face the aisle, one cheek still resting against his sleeve.

"We'll fucking get 'em," she assures him, her voice hoarse but steady, low as the light. Whether she says it for him or herself, Bobby's not sure, but he leans into her a little in agreement. Her conviction strengthens his; he's never believed in anything more than her now, not in his whole damn life. He hears the tiny scratch of her eyelashes against his shirt in the pin-drop quiet each time she blinks, and he turns his head to a more comfortable angle when his neck starts to ache. Neither moves much more than that until after dawn, a two-part shadow radiating warmth in the dark.

**Author's Note:**

> More stories to come, I'm sure, because it's been years and I still can't get over these two. Hopefully someone's still reading!
> 
> You can find me on [tumblr](http://mooseontheyouths.tumblr.com/). I'd be delighted to chat.


End file.
